Tim Peter is an e-commerce and marketing executive with 18 years experience in the financial services, retail, hospitality, and music industries. Tim’s writing focuses on e-commerce, web marketing, persuasive usability and business strategy. He focuses in particular on how to use the web to grow sales, build brands, and extend the customer experience online.

@Joe You make a good point, but it's unlikely the "Likes" in your example relate to a link. While Rand's point about correlation and causality is definitely worth keeping in mind, it also seems logical that a link with repeated shares or "Likes" on Facebook is going to be higher quality than one without. In many ways, it echoes the original PageRank algorithm, where frequently cited academic papers were considered higher quality than those with fewer citations. We're coming full circle here, albeit, as you point out, with more trivial content - unless of course you want to rank well for "tired of cold weather". April 20, 2011

Excellent post, Dr. Pete. I'm particularly a fan of items 5 and 6. One advantage to re-ordering your title tags also has to do with usability. When a customer scans their history (or if they bookmark multiple pages from your site), it's very frustrating to have to look through "Bob's Bacon" repeatedly to find the specific page they're looking for. So, you get both the SEO advantage and improve the customer experience for repeat visitors. That's a win all around. Great job on the post. April 20, 2011

Will,
Good article - and an apt analogy, one I use all the time. There is a form of domain rental at play today, very common in the industry. When a blogger posts their blog on sites like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and when small businesses use EBay or Amazon as a distribution channel, they are effectively renting another domain for their own benefit. Again, it stretches the analogy a bit, but makes it easier to explain to folks unfamiliar with the world of domains.

I don't know. I think I like "CSI: SEO" better (or would that be "CSI: Seattle", starring Sarah Bird and Rand Fishkin). ;-) And, from the looks of things, at least one crime may have been committed here. "Ripped from the headlines..." Oh. Wait. That's Law and Order, isn't it. Curses. ;-) May 28, 2008

Fair points. I would suspect, in this case, the anchor text might be particularly poor. I mean "credit card" would be awesome, but 13-year-old, Texas, Xbox, and hooker likely aren't terms they're looking to rank for. ;)

Seriously, I sometimes question whether these viral campaigns, despite their one-time hit, actually provide long-term business value. But, you're right, money.co.uk is the only one who can answer that. May 22, 2008

Hi Rishil,
No argument that quality inbound links generate business value. My question is "do we know what the value of the links in this case is?"

I've not heard that "£10/link" value before. Is that an industry average I've missed? Or does it correlate with CPM revenues for the Money site? For instance, the value of inbound links to the sites I'm responsible for varies widely. Did Money.co.uk actually see an increase in their business from this activity or only in their traffic? May 22, 2008

I don't know, though. We can argue ethics or the need for increased digital literacy all we want. The ethics of this technique don't appear dramatically different than those in a viral campaign or online game. No, what I want to know is:

Did this campaign generate any long-term business value for Money.co.uk? And,

Didn't the SEO have an ethical responsibility to his client to explain how this might drive traffic, but at a potential loss of credibility?

If the goal was merely to drive a one-time hit in traffic, with no long-term business value and a realistic shot of hurting Money.co.uk's brand image, then I'd say, "mission accomplished." But shouldn't SEO's - and all marketers, really - focus their energies on building long-term brand value for their clients? That's the real ethical dilemma here for me. May 22, 2008

Good writeup as ever, Sarah. I would think the definition of substantial nexus would also depend on what percentage of Amazon's sales come from affiliate marketers, particularly in the state of New York. Is it 5%? 15%? 50%? The larger the number, the harder a case I would think they'll have fighting this. The definition of whether the affiliates represent mail order catalogs or independent salespeople also likely varies by the individual site.

One big question for me is why aren't we hearing more about eBay on this? Wouldn't retailers outside New York who use eBay as a distribution channel and sell to customers in New York - and clear the 10k sales barrier - have as much risk or more as Amazon on this? I think it would be much harder to argue that eBay isn't an independent sales agent. Or am I missing something here?

Actually, Danny, Sean's right on the money on this one. I was at a marketing round table at Cornell last week and we spent a fair bit of time with the undergrads and grad students describing how they can get their foot in the door for all sorts of marketing jobs. This advice is invaluable.

One point I would add under "Convince Them That They Need You" is that companies keep all employees as long as they bring value - not just interns. So, during the interview, it's crucial for candidates to focus on what they bring to the company, not the other way 'round.

Seriously, my remaining concern about this, though, is attorneys and judges who don't understand this looking to add negative keywords into all sorts of actions. The problem usually isn't when courts know all about a given topic. It's when they know just a little bit. May 06, 2008

Richard,
Excellent real-world case study for anyone trying to improve their ranking. Has "Mr. X" seen benefit for any terms besides his name during this process? Has he considered that as well? For instance, I noticed he ranks first in Google for "ion source research engineers" and "particle accelerator research engineers". Is "Mr. X" targeting additional terms? April 26, 2008

Thanks. There's an old expression in the globalization, internationalization, localization and translation (GILT) industry that there's a big difference between speaking Portuguese and thinking like a Brazilian. Information about how Asian nations use search is, so far as I know, non-existent. Anything we can learn about this could go a long way towards helping grow our brands in these crucial markets. Thanks again for a great article. I'll look forward to your next posts on the topic. April 29, 2008

Interesting recap of the keynote, smcilreavy. My only criticism is this appears like information common around the globe. Was there any information that was specific to SEO in the Chinese market worth noting?

Danny,
Terrific post. Your emphasis research first (particularly the keyword selection process and competitive research) is often the difference between successful SEO and successful business results. Nicely done. April 23, 2008

Except for the fact that without copyright protection, there is little incentive to produce new creative works

You might be right, but some of the fine efforts on YOUmoz would indicate otherwise. Copyright protection certainly simplifies the process of monetizing new creative works - and largely prove critical to commercial organizations - but the incentives for creation of those works in practice appear to vary by individual.
April 18, 2008

Bookworm, "most linkbait is offtopic" is an interesting point of view and one worth thinking about. Shouldn't linkbait relate, at least in some way, to what you're really about. For instance, a widget that gives your personality profile or whether you like blondes or brunettes would seem:

Linkworthy

Useful to your customers

Call me naive (no, really, it's OK), but that seems like a winning business strategy as well as a winning SEO strategy.
April 16, 2008

Nice read, Eric. It's worth noting that there's a lot to be said for outbound links to people you'd like linking to you. Not specifically for purposes of reciprocal linking, but to put yourself on their radar. Many of the people on my blog found me initially because I linked to them where it was relevant for me to do so. Funny how what goes around comes around, eh? April 16, 2008

Nice job, Danny. The error too many folks make is assuming "viral" is a goal. Viral messages illustrate a technique, not an end unto themselves. Getting to the first page of Digg might make you look cool, but if it doesn't drive business results - however measured in your world - it's just traffic with no purpose. Better to build slowly for your core audience, just as you've shown here.

Better late than never. I wouldn't expect the music business as we know it to adopt a similar approach, though folks like LiveNation or the up-and-coming players might. The problem is that the traditional music industry believes they're in the business of selling CD's, not music. Until they recognize their product as an abstract stream of bits and not the physical medium, they'll continue to miss the boat.

Television networks - and to a lesser degree film studios - have had less invested in the physical medium and more in the intellectual property since their origins. Their approach reflects that.

The key takeaway for SEO's is looking at what business you are in. Do you offer a service, a product or something else altogether? What would be worth suing for and how can you ensure your value to customers remains true, regardless of changes in the underlying technologies.

Excellent and thought-provoking post, Danny. Keep up the great work. April 15, 2008

Outstanding post. The SEO in this example made the #1 mistake of any web marketing effort: designing for the "average" customer. There is no average customer. Each customer persona has distinct needs and the site must reflect those needs. Otherwise, the site risks appealing to no one. Just like what happened here. Nice job. April 10, 2008

Great article, Rebecca. One thing that I'd love to see is an overview of how this Digg submission is affecting business results at Payscale (or similar). For some businesses, social sites like Digg prove their value. For others, less so. Obviously, we all want more traffic to our sites. But if that traffic doesn't result in increased revenues and more satisfied customers, is Digg really worth it?

Keep up the great work.

P.S. You're so right. Kansas' 3 pointer at the end was amazing. April 10, 2008

This reminds me of the adage, "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." Standards for search marketing and for ethical business practices exist today. In search marketing, they're called best practices. For ethics in marketing, see the American Marketing Association's code. And it isn't a question of whether standards exist; it's a question of whether SEO's follow them, and more critically, whether companies seeking that extra edge endorse them.

What's really needed to end this debate is:

More education for companies on what constitutes sound, ethical business practices for search engine marketing (good niche, SEOmoz)

More information to support that education from the search engines. I'm looking at you, Google.

If Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft were more upfront about the items that contributed to better placement (I can dream, can't I?) - and more important, those that would get you banned - you wouldn't need external standards. You'd just need common sense. April 07, 2008

Good look at important - and often undervalued - metrics. The Holy Grail, of course, is correlating these activities back to purchase intent directly. For instance, in my past, we measured whether people who gave us email addresses at offline points of sale (typically voice or in-store [hotel, in my case]) were in our contact database and had:

received communications from us

had opened email and visited our site

This helped us determine a more complete picture of the value of email signups and how likely repeated communications were to drive additional business.

Theoretically, you could do the same for RSS subscriptions or downloads with the appropriate key.

Great video as ever. Enjoy your time in the land Down Under. And all that. April 04, 2008

A bunch of folks predicted this development - and thank Heavens they were right. The inherent conflict of interest boggles one's imagination. Not that Google really stood to benefit. It's actually harder to preference your own efforts over those of other paid customers simply due to the fact that those customers typically take the appearance of a conflict as evidence of bad behavior. Selling Performics is a preemptive aspirin; it avoids the headache that would have resulted had they not sold it. April 03, 2008

Hi Rand,
Actually, I think we agree pretty closely on that point. The problem isn't that startups have the wrong focus - it's that the folks selling them design services often have, hmmm, we'll call it incomplete focus, just to be charitable. Now the flipside is that SEO's need to offer their services more holistically. Instead of focusing so narrowly on one - admittedly critical - aspect of the site, why not offer a complete solution. What amazes me isn't that there aren't good SEO firms or good design firms or good strategy firms. It's that so few seem to come to the table with a solution that encompasses all of those aspects. Because at the end of the day, a site's success - and the success of the business that site supports - depends on the seamless integration of all those things. April 01, 2008

I'm going to take a middle ground on this. You're right that startups need to have greater emphasis on SEO, but they need to need to have greater emphasis on many things. Search - both paid and natural - should represent pieces of a startup's marketing plan. I think the big problem is that too many startups assume their web designers know SEO and that too many SEO shops remain segregated from web design. Growing a website is not the important part for these folks; growing a business is.

Any design firm that isn't developing SEO skills in-house or working with SEO consultants during the design process is short-changing their customers. And SEO firms should look at where they fit as part of the whole. Startup CEO's and VC's have many things to worry about. The more SEO becomes integrated into the process, the more likely it is that startups - and the SEO's themselves - will benefit. April 01, 2008

Rand,
Excellent points about accessibility and usability. Accessibility is an underrepresented topic in many of these articles, which helps both people with disabilities *and* search engines find and engage with your content. I'm surprised more SEO folks don't represent the two in a more integrated fashion. If you consider the similar needs of spiders and screen readers, the overlap is staggering - as are the potential benefits.

Why not tell your client the truth? Splash pages are rude. They put the client's wishes ahead of their customers'. If the client's customer came to take a specific action (almost always the case) I'm betting watching some animation wasn't it. And if it was, you can provide a link to a virtual tour or company presentation on the landing page.

Companies claim to have an interest in serving the needs of their customers. Tell them that getting in the way of that need is bad business and bad manners.